Adding a Pledge

Adding a Pledge

Overview

A pledge records a promise from a contact to make a payment at a later date. Unlike a standard payment, a pledge does not record income until one or more Pledge Fulfilment payments are processed against it.

Pledges are commonly used for:

• Major donors making payments over time
• Corporate sponsorships
• Donations paid in instalments
• Pledges that may be paid by another contact, such as different branches of an organisation

Create a pledge

1. Open the contact.
2. Click Add Payment.

3. Select Pledge as the Payment Type.

Complete the payment details

Contact Details

The left-hand panel displays the contact's information, including:

• Vega ID
• Contact details
• Address
• Membership information
• Contact Branch
• Key Attributes (if enabled)
• Alerts (if enabled)

Note: The Key Attributes and Alerts sections are optional and can be enabled or disabled in Admin > Financial Settings. When enabled, they provide additional contact information and important alerts directly within the payment form to assist when processing payments.

Payment Attributes

Any available payment attributes are displayed below the contact details. The Contact Branch is added automatically.

Note: For more information on Payment Attributes, see the attached article Understanding Contact Attributes vs Payment Attributes

Payment Details

Complete the following fields:

Allocate distributions

Distributions allow you to split a pledge across multiple campaigns, GL Codes, or receipt documents.

Single distribution

If the entire pledge belongs to one campaign, simply select the:

• Campaign
• GL Code
• Receipt settings

Then click Save.

Multiple distributions

Use multiple distributions when different portions of the pledge need to be allocated to different campaigns or projects.

Each distribution can have:

• its own Campaign
• its own GL Code
• its own receipt document

The pledge will still be created as a single pledge with one Transaction ID.

Note: Assign receipt settings to individual distributions if each allocation requires its own document. To issue a single document for the entire pledge, use the Receipt Details section on the right-hand side.

Payment Notes

Use Pay Details (top right of the form) to record any notes relating to the transaction.

These notes are stored with the payment for future reference.

Receipt details

Receipt Details are used to acknowledge the pledge or generate documentation once the pledge has been fulfilled.

Available options include:

Note: The receipt cannot be downloaded or emailed until after the pledge has been saved.

Save the pledge

Review the information and click Save.

The pledge is automatically created with a status of Pledge Open.

View a pledge

After saving, the pledge appears under:

Payments & Recurring → Pledges

The list displays:

• Total pledged amount
• Amount fulfilled
• Outstanding balance

The example below shows two pledge records. The top pledge contains two distributions, while the bottom pledge contains a single distribution. The Pledges grid displays the total pledged amount, the amount that has been fulfilled, and the outstanding balance, making it easy to track the remaining amount due for each pledge.

Edit a pledge

Click the Edit (pencil) icon beside the pledge.

You can update:

• Total amount
• Campaign
• GL Code
• Distributions
• Receipt settings
• Pledge status

If you increase the pledge amount, Vega will prompt you to distribute the additional balance.

If you reduce the amount below the existing distributions, Vega will indicate that the pledge is over-distributed until corrected.

To remove a distribution, click the Bin icon beside it.

Note: Existing distributions cannot be edited individually. To make changes to a distribution, you must remove it completely using the Bin icon and then add a new distribution with the correct details.

Send an acknowledgement

Once saved, you can send or download acknowledgement documents.

If receipt documents were assigned to:

• Individual distributions — use the Email or Download buttons within the distribution list.
• The overall pledge — use Send Receipt or Download Receipt from the Receipt Details section.

Example of individual distributions

Receipt by email	Receipt by PDF

Example of overall pledge with one receipt document 

Receipt by email	Receipt by PDF

Reporting

You can report on pledges using the preset queries:

• Pledges – All
• Pledges – Open
• Pledges – Successful
• Pledges – Declined

Additional reports are available under:

Insights → Pledge Management

Related article

See Processing a Pledge Fulfilment for instructions on recording payments against a pledge.